Jokowi Orders Minister Edhy To Help Affected Fishermen To Accelerate Patimban Port

President of the Republic of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Photo: Setkab)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) asked his staff to pay attention to the socio-economic impacts experienced by fishermen, due to the acceleration of the Patimban Port project in Subang, West Java.

To that end, Jokowi ordered the Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Edhy Prabowo, to pay attention to affected fishermen and to provide assistance to fishermen.

"I would like to remind the acceleration of this Patimban Port so that the socio-economic impact on fishermen is paid close attention to. Please look carefully at this. If you need support for facilities and infrastructure for boats, for example, for affected fishermen, the KKP can provide assistance to fishermen," Jokowi said when opening a limited meeting related to Patimban Port which was broadcast online on the YouTube account of the Presidential Secretariat, 22 September.

The former governor of DKI explained that the Patimban Port, which has currently completed the first phase of construction, was accelerated so that it could play an important and strategic role in the growth of trade in the West Java region. Moreover, the North Coast of Java is currently connected to a toll road so that this area will later become a super economic corridor.

So, with the completion of this port, it is hoped that a triangle of economic growth areas will be built consisting of Patimban Port, Kertajati Airport, and industrial areas in Karawang and Purwakarta which have competitiveness for export products, especially the automotive sector.

"Because of that, several reports have been conveyed during field visits to accelerate the completion of the construction of the Patimban Port," he said.

Furthermore, Jokowi also reminded that the strategy for developing other main ports, namely Tanjung Priok Port and 28 other ports, can be well consolidated. "So that the future direction of the development will be concrete and clear, have complementary segments, complement each other," he said.

"We hope that this consolidation step will accelerate the growth of regional economic centers and can provide speedy services in the logistics sector so that our export products are more efficient and more competitive," he added.

It is known, the construction of this port will be carried out in three stages. The first stage, Patimban Port is planned to be able to serve 3.75 million containers. The second stage, the service capacity will increase to 5.5 million and in the final stage will increase again to 7.7 million.

When it has been operationalized, Patimban Port will serve the types of container and motorized vehicles transported by large ships that have a capacity of up to 600 thousand vehicles per year when the final stage is completed.